Many folks like the idea of looking to the future and embracing new ways of doing things. New concepts, new technologies—call it what you will, but moving forward is the sign of a good civilization.

However, there’s also something to be said about not forgetting the old way of doing things. I’m not talking about the old folks talking about having to walk five miles to school, uphill both ways through the snow—although I’d be tickled to see today’s kids try that. I’m talking about nearly extinct things that are making a comeback and showing that, even with all the techno gadgetry we have nowadays, some modernizations may not stand the test of time.

Take music. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, also known as a gramophone and in modern society called a record player. For decades after that, the record player was the thing to have in order to listen to music in the comfort of your own home.

Then 8-tracks became the it thing for music, followed by cassettes, followed by compact discs. I remember working for Hasting’s (they’re not open anymore) and buying my music on CDs and using them to listen to music as I walked to and from work and school, and I continued to purchase CDs long after that, even when music went more digital. Today, much of my music collection is on my computer through iTunes.

In the midst of the music modernization, record players are making a comeback. Performance artists are still putting their music out in the digital stratosphere, but many of them are offering their albums via vinyl records. Even as the compact disc is going the way of the dinosaur, records, while not being as popular as they were 50 or 60 years, are back to being a desired method of listening to music.

Then there are vehicles. Once upon a time, no one learned how to drive without operating a vehicle with a manual transmission, where you had to press the clutch when you were shifting gears. This was before vehicles became computerized, and you had to roll down your windows manually. Now you can heat your seats, check your six on the rear-view camera and even start the vehicle without coming out in the bitter winter cold.

However, there’s a reversal on some things in the vehicle world, too. As I’ve pondered replacing my vehicle from circa 2000 and looked to see what’s available, some vehicles—especially the sport-utility vehicles—are offering the option of manually shifting gears, even though almost all vehicles today come with automatic transmissions. The claim is that it makes the driver feel more in control.

With all the computer gizmos regulating things in vehicles these days, I can understand how people can feel that way.

Books are another thing that fall under the modernization crunch. One day, books went from hardcover to paperback to the e-book, where you could hold dozens, hundreds, even thousands of titles under a two-dimensional piece of tech called a Kindle or a Nook.

You saved paper by not printing stories and instead sending them through cyberspace to a techno pad, saving the environment. Schools could save money by not ordering hundreds of textbooks and instead using laptops and iPads to promote learning. For a longtime, bookstores—community gathering places where you could spend hours searching for amazing stories—were in danger of becoming extinct.

When I first started publishing my own books nearly 20 years ago, e-books were the thing. Before I made the move to self-publish, I worked with a small press that focused strictly on e-books, and if my stories sold enough in that format, then they would be considered for paperback.

This modernization, in particular, I have particularly resisted. I grew up flipping through the pages of hardcover and paperback books, and while I use computers for most of my activities and work nowadays, when I’m interested in reading a particular story, I order something that actually has to be shipped through the mail, not downloaded to some impersonal reading device.

Of course, I was just fine with offering my books on Kindle and Nook, as e-books were a primary source of royalties. In recent years, that has changed. Independent bookstores are experiencing a resurgence, and I recently read where Barnes and Noble, which had been closing stores for years, is looking at opening 60 new stores this year, letting local booksellers have more control of their stores.

We live in a world where new technology is leading the way to an interesting future. It’s clear, though, as we welcome tomorrow, we can still hold onto some things from yesterday and enjoy them.